Tuesday, May 30, 2017

When dreaming of having chickens, I knew I wanted to decorate the interior of their coop. It's not exactly practical since chickens aren't the cleanliest of creatures and they really don't have an opinion on the decor, but I wanted the inside to be as cute as the outside.

The chicken feed bags had these cute farm images on them so I decided to cut them out and frame them. I bought inexpensive frames and spray painted them black. For just a few dollars, I have 3 framed pictures.

Vintage looking tin signs add charm to the nesting box area. And speaking of the nesting boxes, they were just installed before these photos were taken. The girls were about 4 months old at the time and almost ready to start laying. I placed ceramic eggs in a few of the boxes to give them a little hint.

The feed bins are stored inside the coop for convenience.

Everyone was let back in the coop to see the new decor and nesting boxes. They weren't quite sure what to think.

And just 3 weeks later, we had collected our first dozen eggs.

I thought it was interesting that the brown egg layers were the first to begin to laying~

Thursday, May 25, 2017

As promised, here is the long-awaited update on finishing the chicken coop. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of pictures-especially of the chicken yard construction. I think I must have been busy with harvesting from the garden and canning season by that point.

May 2015- Chickens are approximately 6 weeks old here

We had quickly finished the front side of the chicken coop with the main door so that the chickens could be moved inside. We set up a temporary fencing for them so they could explore while still being contained and protected.

May 2015- Finishing the siding on the other 3 sides of the coop

While the chickens were contained on one side of the coop, we were able to finish putting the siding on the other 3 sides.

May 2015- Digging the trench to bury the hardware cloth along the edge of the coop.

May 2015

Now that this side of the coop is finished and the hardware cloth attached to the bottom edge of the coop, the temporary fencing was moved to give the chicks a larger space in what would eventually become their large enclosed yard.

June 2015- Adding trim to finish off the corners

June 2015

I can't believe I don't have any pictures from when the above photo was taken and when the below photo was taken. I know I took some, but it must have been with my phone and I can't find the photos now. We turned the pigeon coop and moved it over to form a corner of the chicken yard. Then we started by constructing one "wall" at a time using 4x4 posts and 2x4 braces. Once the walls were up, we stapled half inch hardware cloth around the bottom 2 feet and everything above was enclosed with chicken wire.

To support the chicken wire that creates the "ceiling", we ran heavy wire through screw eyes that crossed from each side and the corners. Then we stretched the chicken wire across, stapled it to the wood frame and used heavy wire ties to secure the "seams". It's held up pretty well for the past two years with only needing a few minor repairs due to the weight of snow accumulating (which thankfully, we don't get a lot of).

December 2015

The pigeon lives with the chickens now instead of in her coop. She really seems to enjoy having a lot more space and can actually fly inside the chicken yard. Buster, the Flemish Giant rabbit was moved into the old pigeon coop. He likes it outside and gets to run around the yard for a little while on nice days. He's drinking from his water bottle in the above photo.

I have some pictures of the interior of the coop as well. I'll share those in a following post.

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Anyone remember my weekly garden updates from a couple years ago (or probably 3 years ago, actually)? Well, with this being the beginning of our veggie growing season, I thought it was a perfect time to start the weekly updates again.

This past Saturday we cleared the weeds, grass and remaining veggie plants from last year. After working all day, we finally were able to top-dress the beds with organic compost from one of our local landscape supply businesses.

34 Herb & Veggie Starts

Since I've been busy with other projects this year, I decided to buy the majority of my veggies & herbs as starts. However, there are still a few things I'll start from seed directly in the garden such as green beans, pumpkins, and corn. I feel like I'm running super late this year, but here in the PNW, we had such a long wet Winter & Spring this year. It seems like late last week someone flipped a switch and turned off the rain and cold and turned on the sun and heat! Now it's almost too hot to be outside. Anyway, I'll be planting all of these plants and starting my seeds in the next couple of days. Check back next Tuesday for another update.

A little snail (his shell was a little large than a quarter)

I saw this little guy this morning. I've never actually seen one of these snails in my yard and almost stepped on him. Being that he was "as slow as a snail" I was able to run and get my camera to snap a couple pictures.

Chicken coop update is coming. Just a couple years late, but it's going to happen!

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

No seriously, I'm really going to post an update soon. It's been just over a year since I said that, but really, seriously, it's going to happen soon. I've been itching to finally update on the finishing of the chicken coop construction. Although, there are still a few things I'd like to do to it this year, the main construction is finished and the chickens have been living in it for 2 years.

About Me

I live in beautiful Western Washington state, tending to our pet menagerie, vegetable, herb & flower gardens, fruit trees, & berry patches. I am a certified aromatherapist and am passionate about using products that are as pure and natural as possible on our bodies and in our home.